Chapter 3: You Were Trying To Cross The Border

I woke up again, and the first thing I did was check my phone: it was one minute after midnight, the exact same date and time as the last go around.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

The quote felt appropriate, given that it, too, was first uttered during a moment of vehicular distress. I suppose I could have quoted Groundhog Day, but this felt more appropriate, somehow. That said, I was hopeful that my current predicament, strange as it was, wouldn’t prove quite so dangerous. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I made my way back to the Club Car all the same, though this time I brought my bag along with me. The Waiter asked for my preference of drink again, when he came to take my order: as I had no particular reason to humour him any more, I went with my preferred still water and nothing else.

Left alone to my thoughts, I kept an eye out for my fellow passengers, as I popped open my laptop and pretended to work. The wi-fi was still down, something I’d thought little of to begin with, but I was beginning to suspect it wasn’t quite natural. Certainly, it was far too convenient that all communications with the outside world had been cut off, just as the oddities started piling up. I spent a bit of time watching people, long enough to see the exact same groups form, as the previous night. An old retired couple, complaining about the state pensions and grandchildren who refused to visit. A table of four German gentlemen, wearing broad-brimmed hats, long beards and clutching leatherbound bibles. A young professional who looked to be in his twenties, preparing a PowerPoint on fiscal policy for the Department of Sports, Art and Culture.

I looked away after that, my eyes already beginning to glaze over at the numerous bar graphs and pie charts. I’d seen enough, anyway, to confirm that there was a level of consistency between loops. I was clearly free to make my own choices, whilst others would continue the way they always did, barring my direct interventions. That didn’t necessarily help me, though, so I turned my thoughts away from the peanut gallery, and onto more productive avenues, like how to escape the time loop I’d been trapped in.

Now and then, I’ve never been a fan of over complicating things, so my first escape attempt was to try the most obvious answer. Instead of going to sleep after dinner, which apparently led to time resetting, I decided to stay awake and get off at the next stop. That would be at Crewe, which was two and a half hours into the journey; easily doable, even if I was missing the most convenient source of entertainment, with the internet being down. I’d lose my check-in luggage, and wouldn’t reach my intended destination, but that hardly seemed important anymore.

That still left me some time to kill, but fortunately, I was a seasoned traveller, and old enough that I preferred to have at least some media stored locally. Pulling out a set of sound cancelling headphones, I booted up VLC Media Player, set an alarm for two hours, and started watching The Fellowship of the Ring.

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—

2 hours later.

I jumped as the alarm rang, assaulting my fragile ears. In hindsight, setting it on my laptop while plugged in with headphones had been a mistake: I should’ve done it on my phone, never mind the disturbance to the other passengers. A quick glance at the carriage’s overhead display showed that we were five minutes from Crewe, so I packed up my laptop, shouldered my bag, and headed back to my sleeper carriage. I could’ve stayed in the Club Car, but there was a chance, however slim, that the staff might get in the way: my ticket didn’t have me getting off until Fort William, after all. Back in my carriage, at the very back of the train, there was no such risk. A simple but effective plan, I thought, until we neared the station, and I realised that the train wasn’t slowing down.

“Attention all passengers. Due to train delays, this train is now following a reduced timetable. The next stop is Edinburgh.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy to hear that. I decided to try the door anyway, on the off chance it was unlocked: it wasn’t. Increasingly annoyed and running out of options, I did something quite unwise, and pulled the emergency lever at the side of the door. That meant a £1000 fine if I got caught doing it, but by this point, I was well beyond worrying about such sums of money. To my slight surprise, the lever actually worked as advertised, pulling the doors open immediately. I’d lucked out, apparently, with this train being on the old design. Newer models would only notify the driver and the train guard, who’d hold the final say on whether the doors opened, in which case I’d have gotten nothing, except perhaps in trouble. Taking the opportunity for what it was, I waited until the train was level with the station platform, and jumped.

Turns out, the action movies had lied to me. Not a shock, I know, Hollywood was famous for showcasing improbable stunts, all to the famous disclaimer: “Don’t try this at home.” I’d thought myself alright then, as I wasn’t doing anything too outlandish, just jumping out of a train going at 80 miles per hour. Well, turns out I may have underestimated just what that kind of speed meant, when applied to a fragile, human body. I’d expected to land on my own two feet, maybe roll a little on the platform, before continuing on my way with nothing worse than scraped elbows and knees. Instead, the platform blurred almost like teleportation, and I felt rather than saw the stone wall I slammed face first into, heard the sickening crack of my neck breaking, and after that? There was no after.

—

I woke up again, heart hammering against my chest as I checked my phone with shaky fingers. It was one minute after midnight, and somehow, I still lived.

“Lovely,” I grinned nervously, stumbling to my feet and somehow making it to the bathroom without breaking down, before promptly vomiting into the toilet.

Not the best start to the latest loop, for many reasons, but at least I was still alive to regret it.